The question “how old are you?” is the example I often use to try to stop my students translating everything they want to say very literally from English to Italian. The literal translation of “how old are you?” in Italian would be “quanto vecchio sei tu?” Here, we have two problems: first the position of the subject, verb and adjective,…

Learning how to speak Italian can be an amazingly satisfying and fun experience, provided you approach this wonderful language with the appropriate self-motivation and in the most favourable environment (such as an Italian language course at our Italian language school in Rome ? ). Studying Italian in Italy with a full immersion in the Italian culture is always the best way to learn Italian language, especially if you consider…

Know your pasta: easier said than done! Italians are so obsessed with their pasta that they actually created a chart to classify every type according to its structure, it’s lenght or its texture: it’s basically a pasta periodic table! That said, it is not surprising that many Italian language students have an hard time to recognize and name even the most…

In Italian every noun has a gender and number. A noun is used for describing a person, an animal, a place or an object. The endings change in the plural with few exceptions. Italian nouns and adjectives can be masculine and feminine, singular and plural. They change the ending vowel according to their gender (feminine or masculine) and number (singular or plural).…

Today it’s all about doubles! What if, instead of saying “Hi, how are you today? Your hair looks great!”, I say “Hi, how are you today? Your hat looks great!”. But you weren’t wearing a hat. You would think I’d gone mad! In Italian this can happen quite easily if you don’t learn to double consonants properly. It’s important to start practising this from your very first…

Buon anno! The start of the new year brings with it the best sales, here in Rome sales (saldi) start on the 6th of January. As a beginner in the Italian language, it can be hard to make conversations with locals. However, since I am a hopeless shopping addicted, I tried to speak to Italian shopkeepers as soon as I…

Have you found your dream house in Italy? Learn the right vocabulary before buying, take time to learn and practice the right Italian words. Start with a video and answer the questions and then open the Prezi presentation to learn more vocabulary and finish with an interactive crossword. Write your answers in the comment or drop an email to info@santannainstitute.com Saluti da…

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When you learn a language it’s good to have different tools – learning a language using songs, videos and films is relaxing and fun, and can help you to enjoy the learning activity. You’ll find that you can memorise the exercise much more quickly than with a written grammar exercise.
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